George Lucas was 25 and working as an intern for Francis Ford Coppola in 1969 when the two men visited the barn-studio of filmmaker John Korty in Stinson Beach.

Both Lucas and Coppola became enchanted with the idea of establishing a rebel filmmaking community in Northern California. They joined with Korty to set up their communal headquarters in San Francisco, a company that would eventually become American Zoetrope. But it wouldn't take long for Lucas to find his way back to the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

In 1980, the year that his film "The Empire Strikes Back" opened, Lucas began construction of what would become his corporate headquarters: Skywalker Ranch, in the aptly-named Lucas Valley north of San Rafael.

The centerpiece of the ranch is a lavishly appointed faux Victorian house that features hand-carved redwood paneling, leaded stained glass, a well-appointed library and high-tech screening rooms. The ranch also includes guest houses, a health club and four dining options. All this was built in the hills of rural Marin that formerly had been zoned for agriculture.

And Lucas was just getting started. In 2000, he began construction of Big Rock Ranch, an $87 million special-effects, high-tech video complex, close to Skywalker Ranch.

Gary Giacomini, a former Marin County supervisor, recalls when Lucas first shared his vision for a sort of miniature Marin County film studio. Giacomini said he told Lucas the only way such a plan would work was if Lucas bought up 5,000 to 10,000 acres of land and only developed a small portion of it.

"He went off for a few years anonymously and bought a lot of the ranches around there," Giacomini said. "Of course, it couldn't be known it was Lucas or the prices would have skyrocketed."

Giacomini estimates Lucas purchased 12,000 to 15,000 acres.

Then when Lucas sought approval from supervisors to build — first at Skywalker Ranch and later at Big Rock Ranch — he agreed to protect the bulk of the land he had purchased from development. Over the years, Lucas has donated 800 acres to the county as public open space and an additional 4,800 acres have been sheltered from future development by Marin Agricultural Land Trust easements.

Bob Berner, MALT's longtime executive director, said his organization received a 2,500-acre conservation easement when Skywalker Ranch was developed and a 2,300-acre easement when Big Rock was developed.

"Those easements were required as part of the development approvals on those properties," Berner said.

Lucas's Marin County operations would expand beyond filmmaking and special effects to include computer games and animation production. Lucas, who also owns a home in San Anselmo, came to be regarded as a sort of Marin patron saint.

Then in November 2004 came the shocking news: Lucasfilm Ltd. and its subsidiaries were moving to the Presidio in San Francisco in 2005, taking with them approximately 1,500 jobs. His company relocated in the Presidio's Letterman Digital Arts Center, an 800,000-square-foot, four-building complex. Videogame maker LucasArts Entertainment was the first to make the move, followed a few months later by Industrial Light & Magic, which had been in San Rafael.

In 2009, a new proposal by Lucas seemed to indicate that he hadn't entirely given up on Marin. Lucas sought permission to build a 262,728-square-foot building to house a digital film production studio and other amenities at the former Grady Ranch in Lucas Valley. The project included administration offices, a restaurant, a general store, a wine-tasting room, screening rooms, costume storage, dressing rooms, 19 guest suites and basement parking.

With an initial design that featured 85-foot-tall towers, architectural experts said the building bore an uncanny resemblance to Casa Grande, the main building at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon.

In April of this year, however, Lucas announced he was giving up on the project, citing opposition from neighbors and regulatory delays. He said he would build the film production studio elsewhere instead and sell the land for a low-income subdivision development. Efforts by county supervisors and other community leaders to change his mind proved futile.

Giacomini said, "It's sure understandable now in hindsight why he bailed a few months ago. He knew stuff nobody else did. I'm sure he'd been working on this deal for a long time."